MATT PIERCE
Emerging social researcher exploring people, communities, health, culture, and the forces that shape everyday life.
Who I Am
My name is Matt. I am an emerging social and behavioral researcher currently based in my home state of Texas with interests in psychology, community and rural health, human behavior, trust, identity, and the social conditions that shape everyday life.My background is in journalism, writing, and working directly with people from a wide range of backgrounds. That experience gradually pushed me toward a different question: not simply what is happening, but why people think, behave, connect, trust, struggle, and adapt the way they do. I’m now building the research, statistical, and methodological skills to investigate those questions scientifically.I’m especially interested in work that crosses traditional disciplinary boundaries, including community health, behavioral science, and One Health. My biggest interest is in research with practical value beyond the university.
RESEARCH INTERESTS
Community Health
How access, trust, geography, culture, and local institutions shape health behavior and outcomes.
Psychology & Human Behavior
How people form beliefs, make decisions, adapt to stress, build relationships, and respond to social environments.
Trust, Identity & Social Connection
How identity, belonging, cultural similarity, and perceived outsider status influence relationships between people and institutions.
One Health & Interdisciplinary Research
How human, animal, environmental, and community health intersect—especially in rural and underserved settings.
I’m particularly interested in research that produces practical, community-level insights rather than knowledge that never leaves the university.
Current Work
Research Development
Building quantitative, methodological, and statistical skills in social and behavioral science, with particular interests in community health, rural populations, psychology, and human behavior.
Rural & Community Health
Developing research questions around trust, cultural congruence, access to care, community identity, and how people interact with healthcare and other institutions.
AI, Language & Human Behavior
Continuing work examining how digital platforms and AI-mediated environments influence language, identity, social interaction, and communication.
Selected Work
Expression, Ownership, and Responsibility in Digital Ecosystems
A critical comparison of POSSE and the Expressive Space frameworks examining questions of digital ownership, identity, and responsibility.
The Creator Cosmos: Expressive Inversion and the Psychology of Creative Rebellion
This paper introduces the Expressive Inversion Hypothesis that I am currently examining as a conceptual framework for analyzing the psychological and structural conditions shaping the digital creator economy.
CURRENT ACADEMICS
San Antonio College (2026-Present)
Current coursework in psychology, history, and related general studies with a growing focus on research preparation.
Research & Methods Training
Independent training in research methods, statistics, epidemiology, R, and related quantitative tools.
R Programming System - Microsoft (2026)
Measuring Disease in Epidemiology - Imperial College London (2026)
Professional Development
Selected coursework and certificates in psychology, public health, and research-oriented topics.
Psychological First Aid - Johns Hopkins University (2026)